College Debate team beat Christ’s College in annual competition

Friday 01 September 2017

On Friday 18 August, our College Debate team travelled to Christchurch to compete against Christ’s College in the annual King’s College versus Christ’s College debate.

The team, who is made up of Geneva Roy (Year 13, Taylor), Benji Flacks (Year 13, Marsden) and Joshua Grant (Year 13, Marsden), convincingly beat Christ’s College to become winners on the day.

The annual King’s versus Christ’s debate has been running since the 1960s, and after losing the trophy to Christ’s College last year the team were determined to reclaim it.

On arrival at Christ’s College the team was immediately given the moot they would negate- ‘This House would vote National’. In an unstoppable display, the team used quick thinking and excellent reasoning to convince the judges.

“Overall it was a wonderful experience for the team,” said Joshua. “The Christ’s College team and wider school were welcoming and gracious in defeat.”

Geneva captained the team with world-class leadership, having recently captained the national Secondary Schools Debating team in Indonesia to a very creditable 12th place out of 52 countries.

Teacher in charge of the Debate team, Tom Lusk said the debate was extremely entertaining to watch. “Despite a courageous battle from Christ’s College, the seasoned and razor-sharp King’s team won the day.”

The King’s College team has since followed this up by winning the semi-final in the Auckland Schools Debating Premier Advanced competition, gaining a place in the grand final on Wednesday 13th of September.